HOW TO RAISE THE AGGREGATE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOR IN BOTSWANA SOCIETY (I)

Publishing Date : 03 October, 2017

Author :

TSHEPO DANIEL ORUFHENG

An Arab proverb says: “the ink of a scholar was holier than the death of a martyr”. A writer’s weapon, shield and spear, was his ink. Goodness and and harmony, may or may not be the end of his action. “ But “every art and every enquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good…”(Aristocle 384-322 B.C.). A good doctor or a good leader fulfilled his disticntive function as a doctor or leader. Nothing was called good unless it was functioning in accordance with its purpose.

Whether virtue in the State or by the State could ever be achieved would depend, Plato (428 – ca. 348 B.C.) thought, upon wether the philosophic element in society could attain dominace. He wrote that “ I was forced to say in praise of the correct philosophy that it affords a vantage point from which we can discern in all cases what is just for communities and for individuals”. He believed that “the human race will not be free from evils until the stock of those who rightly and truly follow philosophy acquire political authority or the class who have power in the cities be led by some dispensation of providence to become real philosophers”.

When we search the scriptures for the source and purposes of Bogosi among tribes, we find that God was the absolute Commissioner of Chiefs and their ends among men. A chief or the state, as a human being, was endowed by nature with a distinctive function. A chief as was the state, was a creature of nature. “He who was unable to live in society/state/chieftaincy, or who had no need of them because he was sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god”.

Not only was humanity by nature destined to live under the state, but the state, as every other community, was “established with a view to some good”. The family exists primarily to preserve life. The state to preserve life for families and villages, which in the longrun are not self-sufficing. Beyond this economic end, the function of the state was to ensure the supreme good of humanity, its moral and intellectual life.

Chieftaincy like the state, were an agency for enabling people to achieve their ultimate goals as human beings. As in the state, individuals of exceptional excellence would be desirable among chiefs, but such persons did not exist with sufficient frequency. A chief like the state, exists for the sake of everyone’s moral and intellctual fulfilment. He “exists for the sake of a good life, not for the sake of life only”.

He was like the state, “a union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honourable life.” Conclusively, “political society (or tribal kingdoms under chiefs or representative government) existed for the sake of noble actions, and not mere companionship.” A good chief was as a good governemnt. Whether a kingdom produced a good life, will depend how its rulers behaved. The perverted Chief/Government was distinguished from the true form, by that the good chief/government seeks to achieve the good of all, whereras the perveted, seeks their own gain.